Saturday 18 January 2014

Halifax LW334


Halifax LW334
Lousy weather for the anniversary  visit
 On the 18th January 1944 , whilst on a cross country navigation training  flight from RAF Topcliffe , this aircraft crashed into the flanks of Black Hambleton hill near the small village of Osmotherly in  North Yorkshire .
Unfortunately the 6 man crew were all killed in the crash .







The crew who were all Canadians were
F/O Joseph  P.  Lavallee    Pilot
Sgt. Richard G. Kimball    Navigator
F/O Wilfred L. Boisvert     Flt. Engineer
F/O Walter Phillips             Bomb Aimer
W/O George E. Giff           W/Operator
Sgt. Guy H. Hivon             Air Gunner
One of the holes into which the wreckage was originally discarded



The visit this day was on the anniversary of the crash . This has been performed for many years (18 ,i think ) Rain, snow, hail or shine  since David  Thompson (2nd from the left in the last shot) first placed the memorial .
This day I joined them  for the first time .
The weather matched the conditions of the day of the crash . Wet with low visibility! 

The memorial with this days new wreath attached
A motley crew of like minded individuals
This shot gets even motlier as yours enters the scene
A few weeks later i revisited the site with my mates Ian and Al . The weather was much better and we had time to have a good look at the site . We came up with a few interesting surmises ...purely speculative of course but still !

There appears to be 4 areas of disturbed ground at what we would like to think is the impact site . These seem, on a rough  measure , to be spaced at the same intervals as the engines would be on a Halifax . The four 'pits' all contained water when we visited but all four have the downslope side edge at feet level and the upslope side edge above knee level . This seemed to us as representative of something heavy driving itself into the hillside . Small fragments of wreckage found within these 'pits' seem to be small bits of engine casing .

On top of that the right hand wing 'pits' seem a little deeper and better defined than the left hand , if this means that the aircraft hit at a slight angle, right wing down, it would have caused the aircraft to spin around slightly as it broke up on impact . Much glass and perspex some of which was very clearly from the nose of the Halifax is located off to the right uphill just a few metres before the memorial itself .  The claim for these pits was the location the wreckage was buried , this may well  still be the case but the crash scenario  could also be true as well . 
All pure speculation ,but it is a very emotive location and worthy of some thought .


Right hand inner if we were right ....and its a big IF :-)

the memorial on a sunny day

  

3 comments:

  1. Hi mate, it does look like a grim day. Good that you found it and were able to pay your respects.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes it wasnt the best weather....so the photography is simply for the record rather than anything for beauties sake . I was so glad i went up though , it was well worth it . The blokes were great and had loads of stories to tell .

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just seen your additional photos here!

    ReplyDelete